Here's the beautiful thing about a concert by Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie, as opposed to a concert by Fleetwood Mac: There's no drama.

There is no forced theatricality, no overwrought play-acting, no nostalgic dance to dance for the graying, paying Boomers in the crowd.

Instead what you get is two old friends playing music – some of it old, some of it new, and all of it, more often than not, with a smile.

"This is not something we really saw coming," Buckingham said during their Thursday at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater. "It was kind of a surprise."

Indeed it was, McVie's return to Fleetwood Mac in 2014 after a 15-year-absence. Rejoining the band rekindled McVie's creative spirit, and she and Buckingham – two of the Mac's primary songwriters, along with Stevie Nicks – paired off for this year's album Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie, and a smaller-venue tour as a duo. Call it Halfwood Mac – not the full experience, but pleasantly different and fulfilling.

Buckingham, 68, and McVie, 74, opened with four acoustic duets, him on guitar and her on keys, an intimate staging that showed off the husky humanity in their voices. There was Buckingham's delicate solo number Trouble; Fleetwood Mac's rarely played 1982 track Wish You Were Here, the newer Buckingham single Shut Us Down and the iconic Rumours single Never Going Back Again, with Buckingham's voice flaring from a whisper to a snarl in an instant. Together they harmonized with the ease of old partners, every so often you'd catch one grinning or clapping for the other.

Certainly, Buckingham's showiest tendencies at times overwhelmed the stage – I'm So Afraid, for example, which ballooned and bloated into a monstrous, bluesy shredfest, with the singer kicking, vamping and screaming until he was left hunched and panting at the end. But when it works, it definitely works. Tusk, that furious, tribal freight train of an anthem, got people dancing in the aisles down front, so much so that an accordion-rocking McVie shimmied over to dance with them.

McVie's voice bore a touch of rust from her years off the road, but she wore it honestly on Little Lies, Everywhere and You Make Loving Fun, gamely enlivening their sweet, springy spirit. And it fared better on songs from the new album. Two of the album's best – the sock-hoppy Feel About You and gentle, California-coastal Red Sun – sounded like classic McVie.

"Exchanging ideas across the ocean," Buckingham said of the demos that led to their dual album, "we knew right away that there was something, that there was a spark."

Watching McVie and Buckingham play together, it seemed like that spark hadn't dimmed. Buckingham sidled up to McVie on the spry and springy You Make Loving Fun, and she gave him a happy little pat on the back. He did so again on Go Your Own Way, leaning into her until they embraced in a brotherly-sisterly hug.

This tour may be the only time Buckingham and McVie play their new duets live, but when Fleetwood Mac reconvenes for what could be its farewell tour in 2018, they should bring that camaraderie with them. All the drama gets old after a while. Just a few good songs and a few genuine songs between old friends, well, that could be a beautiful thing.

Mostly Mac: Before Clearwater show, Christine McVie dishes on her new duet album and tour with Lindsey Buckingham

The show happens on Nov. 9 at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

BILL DEYOUNG OCT 31, 2017 11 AM

Lindsey Buckingham (L) and Christine McVie, who play Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida on November 9, 2017.
JOHN BERRY

Music’s longest-running soap opera took another dramatic turn with this year’s appearance of the album Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie. It’s the first, and only, time two members of the mighty Fleetwood Mac have stepped outside the mothership to make music together (and no, we’re not counting the 1973 record Buckingham and Stevie Nicks made before they were asked to join the band).

Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie is a simple, happy affair, offering state-of-the-art melodic pop from a pair of veterans who’ve worked together — and blended impossibly well — for more than 40 years. It brings to mind their earlier Mac collaborations like “Don’t Stop,” “World Turning” and the quirky-yet-endearing Tusk album.

In fact, with the rock-solid rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood (drums) and John McVie (bass) on most of the tracks, it might as well be a new Fleetwood Mac album.

Except, uh, Stevie’s not on it.

Cue the soap opera theme.

“There’s always that tension between Stevie and Lindsey,” explains Christine McVie, during the lead-up to a Buckingham/McVie appearance November 9 at Ruth Eckerd Hall. “That’s always going to be there.”

Nicks, who was in the middle of a solo tour, has for several years been ambivalent about going back into the studio with Fleetwood Mac. Was she asked to play on this one? McVie stops slightly short of saying no, she wasn’t.

However. “I can say that it was easier, and it didn’t take so long,” she’ll admit. “But you know, saying that, we all adore Stevie. Even Lindsey does. But I think the whole world knows about the tension between them; there’s no point in me denying it. It’s some kind of love/hate thing, I don’t know — we could never get to the bottom of it — but that’s not the reason that this became a duet album.”

(Just to catch us all up: Back in the ‘70s, singer/guitarist Buckingham and singer Nicks, Americans both, were a romantic item. That all ended right around the time they joined the very British Fleetwood Mac, which included the newly-divorced McVies. Then came Rumours, and seventy gajillion albums sold.)

Fast forward. Nicks’ most recent reference to her ex-boyfriend (from a 2009 BBC documentary): "Maybe when we're 75 and Fleetwood Mac is a distant memory, we might be friends.”

Fleetwood Mac has endured, despite the temporary departures of one or more of its key players. And it wasn’t the lure of a successful solo career that led to McVie’s exit in 2003.

“I’d been touring for so long, even before Stevie and Lindsey joined — and even before that, I’d been in another band, etcetera, etcetera — so I just felt my whole life I’d been living out of a suitcase,” she says. “I developed a fear of flying. And my father had been ill, in England, so I’d gone back home to visit him.

“He eventually died, and I thought ‘Well, it’s about time that I moved back home,’ and I bought a house in England. I had said to them, ‘Look, chaps, I’ve just about reached my Waterloo with being in the band. I think we’ll do this one last tour, and then I’m gonna leave.’ And that’s what I did. And on that tour, I was so terrified to fly.

“On the final flight to London, when I landed at Heathrow I swore I would never get on another plane. And I actually never did, for 15 years. I did all my traveling by rail or boat.”

A stint in therapy got rid of the airplane jitters. On her first flight after, from London to Maui alongside her old pal Mick Fleetwood, “I didn’t even notice the wheels leave the ground. Ever since then, I’ve embraced flying. I’ve been to Africa on these little tiny prop planes on safari, and everything. I love flying now.”

She was persuaded to return to the fold for the band’s 2014-2015 world tour. As always, there was talk of cutting a new record — and instead of a full Fleetwood Mac project, that became Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie.

“This was never intended, in the beginning, to be any kind of album at all,” McVie explains. “It was just for Lindsey and I to get together on a more intimate basis in a controlled room — rather than me just walking blind into Fleetwood Mac rehearsals. Just to get together and play some of my new songs. And that’s all we did.

“Then we did the Fleetwood Mac tour and went back to revisit those songs. And we thought, ‘Blimey, these are too just good to not do anything with.’ So that’s when we thought ‘Let’s do a duet album, why not?’”

Since 1975’s breakthrough album Fleetwood Mac (“Over My Head,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me,” “World Turning”), the musical chemistry between McVie and Buckingham has been obvious.

“I think the three of us have always sung well together,” insists McVie. “But Lindsey and I have a particular synergy, in the fact that we were the only actual people that were playing more than single notes in the band.

“I’m a keyboard player, he’s a guitar player, so between the two of us we seem to have this certain knack of understanding what the other is gonna do. So we play around each other. And therefore we can be point creative, and that’s always been the case between Lindsey and I.”

The current tour, she says, is a blast compared to Fleetwood Mac’s semi-regular world-domination dog and pony shows.

“I haven’t played to this few people since I was in a band called Chicken Shack! And it is really, really fantastic. It’s wonderful to play in these old theaters. The acoustics are always amazing. We find that people listen more. It’s not quite such a circus. We just thoroughly enjoy the performing bit of it, you know?”

There will, she adds, be a full-sized Fleetwood Mac tour — with Nicks included — in 2018.

And beyond that? McVie, who’ll turn 75 next July, isn’t sure. “Lindsey and I have been talking about doing another album together,” she says. “But that’s not official.”

She pauses, then laughs softly. “I’ve bought a house in London, so I want to spend some time making my new home as I’m in my dotage! And I want to get a dog.”

Mostly Mac: Before Clearwater show, Christine McVie dishes on her new duet album and tour with Lindsey Buckingham

The show happens on Nov. 9 at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

BILL DEYOUNG OCT 31, 2017 11 AM

Lindsey Buckingham (L) and Christine McVie, who play Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater, Florida on November 9, 2017.
JOHN BERRY

Music’s longest-running soap opera took another dramatic turn with this year’s appearance of the album Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie. It’s the first, and only, time two members of the mighty Fleetwood Mac have stepped outside the mothership to make music together (and no, we’re not counting the 1973 record Buckingham and Stevie Nicks made before they were asked to join the band).

Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie is a simple, happy affair, offering state-of-the-art melodic pop from a pair of veterans who’ve worked together — and blended impossibly well — for more than 40 years. It brings to mind their earlier Mac collaborations like “Don’t Stop,” “World Turning” and the quirky-yet-endearing Tusk album.

In fact, with the rock-solid rhythm section of Mick Fleetwood (drums) and John McVie (bass) on most of the tracks, it might as well be a new Fleetwood Mac album.

Except, uh, Stevie’s not on it.

Cue the soap opera theme.

“There’s always that tension between Stevie and Lindsey,” explains Christine McVie, during the lead-up to a Buckingham/McVie appearance November 9 at Ruth Eckerd Hall. “That’s always going to be there.”

Nicks, who was in the middle of a solo tour, has for several years been ambivalent about going back into the studio with Fleetwood Mac. Was she asked to play on this one? McVie stops slightly short of saying no, she wasn’t.

However. “I can say that it was easier, and it didn’t take so long,” she’ll admit. “But you know, saying that, we all adore Stevie. Even Lindsey does. But I think the whole world knows about the tension between them; there’s no point in me denying it. It’s some kind of love/hate thing, I don’t know — we could never get to the bottom of it — but that’s not the reason that this became a duet album.”

(Just to catch us all up: Back in the ‘70s, singer/guitarist Buckingham and singer Nicks, Americans both, were a romantic item. That all ended right around the time they joined the very British Fleetwood Mac, which included the newly-divorced McVies. Then came Rumours, and seventy gajillion albums sold.)

Fast forward. Nicks’ most recent reference to her ex-boyfriend (from a 2009 BBC documentary): "Maybe when we're 75 and Fleetwood Mac is a distant memory, we might be friends.”

Fleetwood Mac has endured, despite the temporary departures of one or more of its key players. And it wasn’t the lure of a successful solo career that led to McVie’s exit in 2003.

“I’d been touring for so long, even before Stevie and Lindsey joined — and even before that, I’d been in another band, etcetera, etcetera — so I just felt my whole life I’d been living out of a suitcase,” she says. “I developed a fear of flying. And my father had been ill, in England, so I’d gone back home to visit him.

“He eventually died, and I thought ‘Well, it’s about time that I moved back home,’ and I bought a house in England. I had said to them, ‘Look, chaps, I’ve just about reached my Waterloo with being in the band. I think we’ll do this one last tour, and then I’m gonna leave.’ And that’s what I did. And on that tour, I was so terrified to fly.

“On the final flight to London, when I landed at Heathrow I swore I would never get on another plane. And I actually never did, for 15 years. I did all my traveling by rail or boat.”

A stint in therapy got rid of the airplane jitters. On her first flight after, from London to Maui alongside her old pal Mick Fleetwood, “I didn’t even notice the wheels leave the ground. Ever since then, I’ve embraced flying. I’ve been to Africa on these little tiny prop planes on safari, and everything. I love flying now.”

She was persuaded to return to the fold for the band’s 2014-2015 world tour. As always, there was talk of cutting a new record — and instead of a full Fleetwood Mac project, that became Lindsey Buckingham/Christine McVie.

“This was never intended, in the beginning, to be any kind of album at all,” McVie explains. “It was just for Lindsey and I to get together on a more intimate basis in a controlled room — rather than me just walking blind into Fleetwood Mac rehearsals. Just to get together and play some of my new songs. And that’s all we did.

“Then we did the Fleetwood Mac tour and went back to revisit those songs. And we thought, ‘Blimey, these are too just good to not do anything with.’ So that’s when we thought ‘Let’s do a duet album, why not?’”

Since 1975’s breakthrough album Fleetwood Mac (“Over My Head,” “Rhiannon,” “Say You Love Me,” “World Turning”), the musical chemistry between McVie and Buckingham has been obvious.

“I think the three of us have always sung well together,” insists McVie. “But Lindsey and I have a particular synergy, in the fact that we were the only actual people that were playing more than single notes in the band.

“I’m a keyboard player, he’s a guitar player, so between the two of us we seem to have this certain knack of understanding what the other is gonna do. So we play around each other. And therefore we can be point creative, and that’s always been the case between Lindsey and I.”

The current tour, she says, is a blast compared to Fleetwood Mac’s semi-regular world-domination dog and pony shows.

“I haven’t played to this few people since I was in a band called Chicken Shack! And it is really, really fantastic. It’s wonderful to play in these old theaters. The acoustics are always amazing. We find that people listen more. It’s not quite such a circus. We just thoroughly enjoy the performing bit of it, you know?”

There will, she adds, be a full-sized Fleetwood Mac tour — with Nicks included — in 2018.

And beyond that? McVie, who’ll turn 75 next July, isn’t sure. “Lindsey and I have been talking about doing another album together,” she says. “But that’s not official.”

She pauses, then laughs softly. “I’ve bought a house in London, so I want to spend some time making my new home as I’m in my dotage! And I want to get a dog.”

I adore Christine. "It’s some kind of love/hate thing, I don’t know — we could never get to the bottom of it." And I bet they gave up trying, right?

And the album was never intended to be an album at all? Interesting.

Christine summarized what I always thought about Lindsey and Christine, and why they're my favorites: “I’m a keyboard player, he’s a guitar player, so between the two of us we seem to have this certain knack of understanding what the other is gonna do. So we play around each other. And therefore we can be point creative, and that’s always been the case between Lindsey and I.”

And Christine is at ease with the BuckVie tour rather than the FM mega tour. We all knew that.

__________________"I think what you would say is that there were factions within the band that had lost their perspective. What that did was to harm the 43-year legacy that we had worked so hard to build, and that legacy was really about rising above difficulties in order to fulfill one's higher truth and one's higher destiny." - Lindsey Buckingham, May 11, 2018.